Two demands. Is the increasing liberalisation of international trade in agriculture compatible with the right to food as recognised by the UN? One of the documents drafted by Olivier De Schutter, the UN's special rapporteur on the Right to Food (see this column yesterday) focuses on this question. De Schutter's document is the result of a mission made to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in Geneva and includes several interviews with ambassadors from WTO-member states which are currently engaged in Doha Round negotiations. On the basis of the results of this mission, the author considers it indispensable to: a) recognise the specificity of agricultural products, which in a trade context cannot be seen as ordinary merchandise; b) include a special system for Least Developed Countries (LDCs) whose agricultural productivity in 2006 only represented 1% of the productivity of developed countries and 46% of that of other developing countries.
Observations. The two demands made above are based on several observations:
the liberalisation of international agricultural trade leads to food dependency in poor countries, from which a multitude of vulnerabilities spring: loss of income to exports when food prices fall; threats to local producers due to low price imports; balance of payment imbalances when import prices increase;
liberalisation consolidates the power of multinationals to the detriment of national agro-food systems when countries are both dependent on exports to sell their produce and on imports to feed their inhabitants. This double demand applies to the whole food chain and leads to a hike in transport costs and non-sustainable modes of production that have ramifications on climate change, health and eating habits.
Recommendations. The report formulates four recommendations for making agricultural trade in the world compatible with human rights, particularly the right to food:
Doha participant countries should define their positions by taking into account strategies that put the right to food and human rights in general into practice;
Farmers' organisations should be more involved in national strategies, even those that go beyond the context of the WTO, bilateral trade negotiations, for example;
Developing countries should, in the framework of differentiated treatment, which is already, in principle, recognised for them, maintain a facility to take action against international price volatility (which largely impacts on national prices even when trade is only on a small scale);
States should control market forces in agricultural trade. Multinational companies escape the rules and commitments linking states and this is a, “big loophole in global governance”. In the medium and long term, a multilateral framework should ensure appropriate control of these firms; in the short term, states should regulate the activities of these players when they operate outside national territory.
If the UN follows its rapporteur's line…Mr De Schutter is the special rapporteur until March 2011 and is not invested with any powers, which makes him even freer to speak out about the different bodies that defend their national positions. This observation is also valid in WTO negotiations and intergovernmental meetings. The G8 recently met up at an agricultural ministers' level and the eight countries making it up (US, Russia, Germany, France, United Kingdom, Italy, Japan and Canada) also invited their colleagues along from Brazil, China, India, Mexico, South Africa, Argentina, Australia, Egypt, as well as the European Commission. This resulted in the common declaration of a number of principles: increase investments in sustainable farming and rural development; sanction food protectionism and export bans; monitor price instability and speculation; develop energy production from biomass; examine the feasibility of an international storage system for staples (without saying which ones). Yet nothing was said about the liberalisation of trade or the purchase of land by different countries. The unanimity requirement resulted in a vague set of conclusions: how can Brazil or China agree with Mr De Schutter's conclusions? Can the right to food take precedence over trade interests? If the UN follows the line of its rapporteur, this debate will kick off. (F.R./transl.rh)